FreeBSD Man Pages

SEND(2) FreeBSD System Calls Manual SEND(2)
NAMEsend, sendto, sendmsg -- send a message from a socket
LIBRARY
Standard C Library (libc, -lc)
SYNOPSIS#include <sys/types.h>
#include <sys/socket.h>
ssize_tsend(ints, constvoid*msg, size_tlen, intflags);
ssize_tsendto(ints, constvoid*msg, size_tlen, intflags,
conststructsockaddr*to, socklen_ttolen);
ssize_tsendmsg(ints, conststructmsghdr*msg, intflags);
DESCRIPTION
The send() function, and sendto() and sendmsg() system calls are used to
transmit a message to another socket. The send() function may be used
only when the socket is in a connected state, while sendto() and
sendmsg() may be used at any time.
The address of the target is given by to with tolen specifying its size.
The length of the message is given by len. If the message is too long to
pass atomically through the underlying protocol, the error EMSGSIZE is
returned, and the message is not transmitted.
No indication of failure to deliver is implicit in a send(). Locally
detected errors are indicated by a return value of -1.
If no messages space is available at the socket to hold the message to be
transmitted, then send() normally blocks, unless the socket has been
placed in non-blocking I/O mode. The select(2) system call may be used
to determine when it is possible to send more data.
The flags argument may include one or more of the following:
#define MSG_OOB 0x00001 /* process out-of-band data */
#define MSG_DONTROUTE 0x00004 /* bypass routing, use direct interface */
#define MSG_EOR 0x00008 /* data completes record */
#define MSG_EOF 0x00100 /* data completes transaction */
#define MSG_NOSIGNAL 0x20000 /* do not generate SIGPIPE on EOF */
The flag MSG_OOB is used to send ``out-of-band'' data on sockets that
support this notion (e.g. SOCK_STREAM); the underlying protocol must also
support ``out-of-band'' data. MSG_EOR is used to indicate a record mark
for protocols which support the concept. MSG_EOF requests that the
sender side of a socket be shut down, and that an appropriate indication
be sent at the end of the specified data; this flag is only implemented
for SOCK_STREAM sockets in the PF_INET protocol family. MSG_DONTROUTE is
usually used only by diagnostic or routing programs. MSG_NOSIGNAL is
used to prevent SIGPIPE generation when writing a socket that may be
closed.
See recv(2) for a description of the msghdr structure.
RETURN VALUES
The call returns the number of characters sent, or -1 if an error
occurred.
ERRORS
The send() function and sendto() and sendmsg() system calls fail if:
[EBADF] An invalid descriptor was specified.
[EACCES] The destination address is a broadcast address, and
SO_BROADCAST has not been set on the socket.
[ENOTSOCK] The argument s is not a socket.
[EFAULT] An invalid user space address was specified for an
argument.
[EMSGSIZE] The socket requires that message be sent atomically,
and the size of the message to be sent made this
impossible.
[EAGAIN] The socket is marked non-blocking and the requested
operation would block.
[ENOBUFS] The system was unable to allocate an internal buffer.
The operation may succeed when buffers become avail-
able.
[ENOBUFS] The output queue for a network interface was full.
This generally indicates that the interface has
stopped sending, but may be caused by transient con-
gestion.
[EHOSTUNREACH] The remote host was unreachable.
[EISCONN] A destination address was specified and the socket is
already connected.
[ECONNREFUSED] The socket received an ICMP destination unreachable
message from the last message sent. This typically
means that the receiver is not listening on the remote
port.
[EHOSTDOWN] The remote host was down.
[ENETDOWN] The remote network was down.
[EPERM] The process using a SOCK_RAW socket was jailed and the
source address specified in the IP header did not
match the IP address bound to the prison.
[EPIPE] The socket is unable to send anymore data
(SBS_CANTSENDMORE has been set on the socket). This
typically means that the socket is not connected.
SEE ALSOfcntl(2), getsockopt(2), recv(2), select(2), socket(2), write(2)HISTORY
The send() function appeared in 4.2BSD.
BUGS
Because sendmsg() does not necessarily block until the data has been
transferred, it is possible to transfer an open file descriptor across an
AF_UNIX domain socket (see recv(2)), then close() it before it has actu-
ally been sent, the result being that the receiver gets a closed file
descriptor. It is left to the application to implement an acknowledgment
mechanism to prevent this from happening.
FreeBSD 10.1 September 13, 2006 FreeBSD 10.1